The recent ban
imposed on the airing of the documentary titled “India’s Daughter” by Leslee
Udwin, has again brought the infamous 2012 Nirbhaya rape case to the limelight.
The brutal and insensitive rape of a 23 year old paramedic student in the
National Capital Territory of Delhi sent shockwaves in the entire nation and
resulted in mass protests of the kind never seen before in Indian history. The
sustained and prolonged public protests forced the government to sit up and
take notice. The Justice JS Verma Committee was appointed to “look into
possible amendments of the Criminal Law to provide for quicker trial and
enhanced punishment for criminals committing sexual assault of extreme nature
against women”. The preface of the report submitted by the Committee on January
23, 2013 notes, “The constitution of this Committee is in response to the country-wide
peaceful public outcry of civil society, led by the youth, against the failure
of governance to provide a safe and dignified environment for the women of
India, who are constantly exposed to sexual violence. The immediate cause was
the brutal gang rape of a young woman in the heart of the nation’s capital in a
public transport vehicle in the late evening of December 16, 2012”. The
Committee submitted its report in a record time of 30 days. It made some
path-breaking recommendations, some of which were accepted and resulted in the
Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2012. Although the committee stopped short of
recommending death penalty for rapists, they were nevertheless awarded the
same, the final plea to which is pending with the Supreme Court. The gruesome
nature of the rape and the fatal physical injuries inflicted on the victim led
the court to categorize this case among the rarest of rare cases, deserving an
award of death penalty.
This incident became a landmark in that
it sparked a plethora of debates ranging from law and order and good governance
issues to the need of gender sensitivity and a major cultural re-orientation in
our society in the way it views and treats its women.
The release of the documentary by Leslee
Udwin and its hasty banning by the Indian government has re-ignited the debates.
The focus this time around has shifted to the accused and their warped
mind-sets towards women and the general patriarchal set-up of the Indian
society. This shift in focus is a result of the interviews conducted with one
of the accused and their lawyers, which clearly portray the unrepentant
attitude of the accused two years after committing the crime, and being awarded
death penalty for the same. The interviews with the defence lawyers lay bare
the ingrained gender bias and male domination in our society.
The government, in its haste to ban the
release of the documentary in India, has inexplicably reasoned that airing of
such views by the accused and their lawyers are is against “national interest”
and derogatory to India’s image in the world. This stance, though disgusting,
may not be surprising. The government has only lived up to its true character
of creating hype for all the wrong reasons and in the process, side-lining the
real issues plaguing our society.
For me, two core areas emerge that need
to be redressed to have a real and lasting impact in transforming our society
and changing its mind-set. One is, the right education at the right time, and
second is the much neglected domain of prison reforms. The two might not seem
to be much inter-related at the first glance, but I will elaborate further on a
need of substantial reforms in both, and the exponential impact it can have on
the society.
Let us first look at the much discussed
field of education. It has been widely conceded that a serious and substantive
reform of the society has its roots in education reforms. In the wider field of
education too, primary education deserves a special mention here. It has been
clinically proven that the formative years of an individual’s life play a
substantial and crucial role in shaping the personality of an individual. The
right guidance at this time of life goes a long way in shaping an individual
into a well-developed human being with a satisfactory ability to distinguish
between right and wrong. Education is the only means through which this goal
can be achieved.
The key factor here is the
differentiation between education and literacy. The Right to Education Act,
2005 has made education a free and compulsory right for all between the ages of
6years and 14 years. This Act has played a major role in near universalization
of education. But the problem does-not end there. According to the 10th
Annual Status of Education Report, 2014, released by Pratham, the quality of
education, especially in the government schools, leaves a lot to be desired. For
instance, according to the report, out of all children enrolled in Std. V,
about half cannot read even at Std. II level. The report goes on to suggest
some useful measures that can be taken to augment the learning outcomes for
children. These, inter alia include, grouping by level and not by grade,
special focus, time attention and use of innovative teaching methods in Class I
and Class II to ensure that children acquire basic skills, involvement of
parents in the entire learning process etc.
Another aspect of the entire learning
process is the value system that the children inculcate. The aim of education
should be not only to enable an individual to read and write, but also, and
more importantly, to build a strong value system, which includes respect for
humanity, gender sensitivity, achievement orientation, values of honesty,
integrity, hard work, empathy etc.
In order to achieve this goal, the entire
mind-set towards the teaching-learning process needs to undergo a complete
overhaul. First and foremost, there is an urgent need to recognize the
importance of education, especially at the elementary level. The curriculum
designed should not only target at making an individual literate, but also
educated, learned and fit enough to live in the society as a well-rounded
individual. Teaching needs to be re-established as a noble profession and put
on a high pedestal. The economic and social status of teachers should be made
commensurate to the importance of their role. Their selection process needs to
be rigorous and their training continuous and meaningful. Even the non-state
actors in the field of education should be adequately supported and encouraged.
The second area in need of urgent
attention and repair which I want to highlight here is the field of prison
reforms. The modern prison in
India originated with the Minute by TB Macaulay in 1835. The present jail
management and administration in India operates on the basis of the outdated
Prisons Act, 1894. Several Committees and Commissions have been appointed to
give recommendations in this area, which include, the recommendations given by
Dr. W.C. Reckless, a UN expert, All India Jail Manual Committee, Mulla
Committee, Krishna Iyer Committee etc. All these committees have given useful
recommendations to deal with the problems of overcrowding in jails, corruption
and extortion, unsatisfactory living conditions, staff shortage and poor
training, inadequate prison programs, poor spending on healthcare and welfare,
lack of legal aid, abuse of prisoners, inadequate means of mental and spiritual
development etc. Most of these recommendations have remained on paper and the
conditions of Indian prisons remains dismal to say the least.
To make any real headway in this area, again a complete change in
mind-set is required. Prisons need to be seen not as punishing institutions but
as reforming institutions. It is natural that after the Nirbhaya rape case, the
country cried out for justice in one voice, and quick legal changes were
introduced to calm the nation down. But the controversy surrounding the release
of the documentary forces us to think beyond the usual. Even after being given
the death sentence and spending more than two years in jail, the accused
retains the audacity to justify his crime and almost be proud of having
committed it. The thought provoking aspect here is not the effect that airing
such views will have on the society, but the underlying conditions that
encourage this perverted thinking of the accused. He is only giving back what
he has been able to take in. He has never been taught to value life. He does
not know the meaning of female dignity. Is it that impossible a task to show
him the right path and guide him to right action? If an individual can be
indoctrinated to act as a human bomb and take his own life for a perpetrated
cause, can he not be indoctrinated with the right values to live a life of
dignity and respect? Can our prisons not open the doors to a new life for the
misguided ones who enter their doors? Yes, there will remain a few who refuse
to reform, and we do have adequate laws to deal with such ones, but for the
rest, do we not has something better to offer?
Do the above measures not have the potential to create a ripple effect
and make the world a much better place to live in? I leave you to decide for
yourself.
